on feminism and a dusty surfboard

(Written last October)


Last weekend an apostle came to town. The night he was scheduled to speak everyone arrived early. There was a special reverence in the air. A hushed silence came over the room as he and his wife walked in and took their seats up on the stand.


He delivered a wonderful message, was completely charming and witty and everything you'd hope an apostle would be. Despite all of that, my eyes kept drifting over to his wife again and again. She was nothing what I'd expected. She was small. Think Olympic gymnast sized. She had long, frizzy dark hair with bangs covering her whole forehead and resting on her eyelashes. She wore a floor-length black skirt with a black long-sleeved shirt and a lot of black eyeliner. My initial impression was Wednesday from the Adams Family. She spoke just above a whisper and kept her upper torso very still, just shifting her eyes as she spoke. She was very poised and articulate and terribly, terribly sweet from head to toe. 


As she spoke my mind revisited all of the other apostle's wives I've met or heard, and all of the women who speak from the pulpit at General Conference, and I concluded: sweet, sweet, soft-spoken, subservient, geez, sweet! And I thought, I will never be an apostle's wife. 


I am way too spicy. I have women's rights and feminism plastered all over the walls of my brain. I can be authoritative and rude and outspoken and, most annoyingly, prideful. And I wonder if any of those women started out like me? And do I even want to become that type of woman? Some part of my identity is tied up in being feisty and savvy and not so quiet about it all. And I wonder if that's something that will fade away as I grow?




(Written today)


I had an encounter last week with a teenaged girl. She had spiky red hair, a hoop through her nose, and body parts stuffed into Barbie-sized clothes. She was chewing out another woman twice her age, a respectable authority figure, in a loud obnoxious voice with her chest puffed out and finger waving. Her language was uneducated and harsh and crude.


Is this what women have become after just three generations of liberation? Are these the types of girls my daughter will have as peers and colleagues? Immodest, vulgar with hardly a trace of femininity left unscathed?


I'm beginning to understand the incalculable value of traditional women. Gentle, nurturing, quietly wise. 


Once I wanted to pursue professional surfing. I idolized spiky-haired women who could stand on a board propelled by a wave and do some pretty cool tricks. I used to roll my eyes when I watched General Conference and those soft-spoken women came on. I JUST CAN'T RELATE TO THOSE PEOPLE, I thought. THEY'RE SO CLOSED-MINDED AND BORING.


Now my surfboard is gathering dust in the garage and the words of those sweet women fill my head with beautiful truth and buoy up my sometimes-weary heart while I mop the floors and do the dishes. 


I've chosen to pursue a quiet life in the trenches of marriage and motherhood. It is far from the lime-light of popularity or prestige and certainly not very exciting, I'm sure some people think. And amazingly, I don't mind. I still surf occasionally, but my focus has shifted. I'm still feisty and outspoken, but I no longer want to be. The things I care about have changed. My heart has changed. 


I feel like I'm finally becoming someone I can be proud of.

night-time escapades

There are two things you may not know about me. 

First: I live in an old ranch house in the middle of nowhere. The stairs creak, there are a lot of curtain-less windows and plenty of stories from previous tenants of, well, noises. Ghosts. It is so picture perfectly scary that it was used as a film set for a horror movie last year. Charming, right?

Secondly: I am a big, fat wuss. 

So it is surprising to me even that I've slept here husband-less hundreds of times with virtually no problems....until Monday night happened.

It started out like any other night, you know, eat dinner, bathe the child, put her to bed, clean up. I was loading the dishwasher when I heard a loud 

OOOOOOoooooowwwWWWWWOOOOOooowwWWWWWW!

It sounded like the cry of someone who had just been shot and was bleeding to death outside my window. Naturally, my first thought is: HOLY. CRAP. There is a ghost out there that is crying their eyes out!!! 

After searching the house with shaky knees the sounds led me to the back door, and with a sudden burst of bravery I flung it open. I heard a "REEEEERRRRRR!" and a raccoon scampered off into the dark. SIGH. Raccoon. Back to cleaning.

Not a half an hour later I was putting a book on the shelf and 

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK. 

on the front door. A split second of reasoning deduced that I wasn't expecting anyone, I hadn't heard a car pull up, and it was way too late for random visitors. Panic set in. So I did what any self-respecting protective mother would do. I dove into the kitchen and hid between the cabinets in the fetal position. I called Nathan. 

"I think there's someone trying to break into our house."

"What?! What did you hear?"

"Knocking."

"Honey, someone breaking in wouldn't knock."

"No. It was a soft knock, like they're trying to see if I'm home. You know? Home Alone? Sticky Bandits style? Nevermind. Call my dad and tell him to come over quick. I'm calling 911."

Then I sat there like a paranoid squirrel listening to every little noise. Soon I heard the diesel engine from my dad's truck come roaring up the driveway. He circled the house like a mad man with the high-beams on going so fast that I'm pretty sure I saw him get airborne on a driveway rut. Like Jeff Gordon driving an F-350. By the time he was done rounding the track three cop cars had shown up.

They proceeded to search the premises with big spot lights - in every dark corner, up in the trees, the garage - covering all the bases. Nothing. No perpetrators, no footprints, nothing. And yet I'd heard a knock! This guy is good, I thought. I loaded up the car and stayed the night at my parent's house. 

(UNRELATED: When we got there my mom and sister were watching The Bachelor. I figured some mindless entertainment would be good for my nerves, so I sat down and joined them. I had never seen the show before. HILARIOUS. Is all I have to say about that. Did anyone else appreciate the baton twirler as much as I did?! Seriously laughed till I cried.)

When I came home on Tuesday and nothing had been stolen I figured I should face my fears and try to stay home for the night. I could always leave if I got too scared, and besides, nothing had been stolen. It was probably just my imagination. 

I went to bed early, got up early, and opened the blinds just as a beautiful little woodpecker came swooping down onto the front porch. It landed on a wooden pillar right by the front door and 

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

I felt like such an idiot.

myself in four parts

I woke up to a kiss this morning as your dad was leaving for the airport. It stole me from the land of sleep and with my eyes still closed I rolled onto my knees, grabbed his hands, and we prayed. He smelled like soap and Old Spice. I heard him clunking his way down the stairs which was followed by that all-too-familiar heaviness of heart. The anticipation of a daddy-less week.


I laid there in the dark, everything quiet except the fast, relentless flicker of thoughts passing like an old film reel. Everything I need to do...a detail reminds me of another detail and almost imperceptibly my thoughts make a million hops across my brain like a little flea on crack. 


I'm telling you this because someday your worries will consist of things beyond whether lunch is served on the froggy or the ducky plate, and you too may find yourself laying in the dark feeling helplessly subject to your anxieties. And I want you to know what I've learned from all of this: 


There are four distinct voices operating within us all. 


Body, spirit, mind and heart.


These night-time displays generally occur when one of them is needing some attention. It's a bit like parenting a house full of kids. The body and spirit are quiet and subservient and won't make much noise unless they're really bothered. The head and the heart can either be the very best friends, the quintessential powerhouse team or they can hate each other's guts...and their battles will unfold on the playing field of your body.


They all just need a little lovin', really. My bonding methods of choice are yoga, prayer & scripture study, meditation and writing, respectively. If I do them everyday I glide through life like a well-oiled machine. 


BUT, I'm reminded of this precious instruction by my own failure to live up to it recently. So don't get discouraged. You have all of the tools you need to do wonderful things with your life. Like becoming a charitable person. The goal of all goals. I'm working hard to be a role model for you because you are precious and you deserve it.

a memory of love

Stella with two of her favorite people: cousins Sophie and Londyn

In my mind there is this picture, it existed once if I could only find it again. It was of my grandpa long after the lights had gone out. Alzheimers. He was sitting at the table ready to eat and Grammie was leaning over him, carefully tucking an unfolded napkin into his collar. He couldn't remember how to talk anymore, which broke all of our hearts since he was a terribly funny man. And he couldn't remember who she was, which I'm sure was nearly enough to snap her tiny little heart in two. And yet she kept on, gently guiding him from the bed to the chair to the table to the bath, and so on. Thoughtfully ironing his shirts and shaving his face and talking to him as if nothing in the world had gone awry.

And this, to me, is love embodied. Giving someone what they need, and happily receiving what they are able to give back, meager as it may be.

Something to aspire to.

Happy lovers day, everyone.

where the rubber meets the road

My prayer tonight went something like this:


"Today I didn't feel as enlightened, joyful, peaceful - I didn't feel the Spirit like I did the first hour I was awake. Which is 100% my fault and for which I'm very sorry."


I'm still learning all of the truths in practice that I'm taught cognitively during my studies each morning. I say things I don't mean, I allow a crabby little baby to get the best of me at times, I get offended when I don't get my way and annoyed by almost everyone, including myself. SO. Safe to say I have a long way to go.


Have you ever learned a new language? Isn't it interesting how you can hear and understand, read and understand, and then as soon as you open your mouth to speak your tongue becomes this foreign object that you suddenly have no control over? You just can't seem to make it do what you want it to do. Your knowledge of the language holds no sway if your mouth is untrained.


I felt that way in my body today. Like my wheels are spinning so fast when they're in the air, but once the rubber hits the road, not so much.


Thankful to close my eyes and try again tomorrow.

carrots in heaven

I've heard it said that heaven can be imagined by thinking of all of the splendors of the world, multiplied by two. I thought of that today watching you laugh. You had two fingers in your belly button and you forced out this loud, nervous giggle that usually means something terribly exciting is about to happen.


It was carrots. Your dad was fishing out some carrots from the fridge to take as a treat to the horses. You held one tight in each hand and with the proudest, most contented look on your face, ran chest first toward the door with your feet pattering behind trying to keep up. He scooped you onto his shoulders and started jogging around the yard, which you think is the most hilarious thing. Your curls were bouncing and wild shrieking filled the air as you two ran off, the cat tagging after as if she had some business of her own that happened to be taking her in more or less the same direction.


It was a splendor of my world, that whole scene. If I tried to multiply it by two I think my brain would explode.

Just when I think my morning hair can't get any better, I wake up to something like this....

...and totally out do myself. I decided it needed to be proudly worn and admired, if by no one except Stella and the horses we bring breakfast to every day. 


Day five of Nathan being gone is our breaking point, we've just established. First Stella, who put on such a spectacle while I was pouring her cereal that even the cat stopped to watch. Wailing and collapsing and rolling around on the ground like she was being stung by bees. It was all very impressive. Academy Award worthy.


Then me. I suddenly ran out of juice and didn't want to be upright anymore. I sunk down into our big fat chair and stared out the window at the grey clouds rolling in. The cows were ganging up on an old dresser that we had thrown on the burn pile, taking turns head butting it until it finally toppled over. The drawers fell open exposing thick stacks of loose paper containing very confidential information. Nathan had stuffed it in there to be burned. That was a terrible idea, just for the record. I watched a big gust of wind send them straight up into the air, like a flock of white birds taking flight, and carry them to the four corners of the pasture. 


Stella has started making unreasonable demands, as she's been known to do after several minutes of being ignored. "I WANT FRUIT SNACKS! AND POPSICLLLLLLLLLEEEE! WAAAAAAA! I WANT DAAAAADDDDYYY! RIDE A HORSEYYYYYYYYY!"


I guess I'll peel myself off of this chair and go get the girl some fruit snacks. With my Tina Turner hair. And go save our business from blowing all over the county. And count down the seconds until Nathan gets home.